Saturday, September 14, 2019

Businesses Quietly Laying Off Workers Ahead of Anticipated Recession

Don't be fooled by the small numbers because many of them are layoffs at corporate headquarters.
Here's a list of the latest layoffs:

This was just a partial list from the first page of a Google search using the key words "lays off"

Monday, March 04, 2019

Job losses in 2019

Money just posted the article The Retail Apocalypse Is Heating Up in 2019. Here Are the Major Stores Currently on Deathwatch. The list is getting long and some of the stores are already gone, but I thought I would do a little research into how many jobs will be gone after all is said and done:


The trouble I'm having is discovering precisely how many total jobs are at stake. Fit Small Business explains "Top 10 Retail Analytics Every Store Needs to Measure." Number 10 is the Payroll Percentage, It says that "Businesses with low margins have to spend less on payroll," but following this advice may have had dire consequences according to Forbes which posted an article on 12/16/2017 complaining that "Too Few Retail Workers On The Floor, Too Few Retail Sales And Profits On P&L Statement"

Businesses couldn't lower wages, so what other choice did they have? Cutting hours for part-time workers, cutting store hours to peak traffic times only, or layoffs.


Unfortunately nobody seems to be able to think outside the balance sheet to the larger economy and consider that all these retail employees losing their jobs might have been good customers if they were paid enough to have disposable income.

XIIID Research explains the shift of service infrastructure from a middle class into a form of poverty class. But the worst is yet to come, according to Michael Hudson we are currently in an "Extraction Economy" which is permanently siphoning money from the Working Class into the pockets of the Financial Class.


Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Businesses Decry Illinois Minimum Wage Increase

Rip Van Winkle (artist unknown) composited with
JonasDeRo's Ruined New York 
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law recently a state minimum wage increase to $15 per hour over a period of several years, during which inflation will keep up, rendering this action nothing more than just a political ploy.

Ideally for Springfield, Illinois alone this is alleged to affect the wages of over 36,610 people who currently earn less than $15 per hour.

If the minimum wage was pegged to inflation since it's inception, in today's dollars it would be over $23 per hour anyway. If the minimum wage was pegged to productivity we probably wouldn't have so much inflation.

So businesses trot out their pundits with the stale threats that they would do the following which have consequences:

  • Leave the state of Illinois
    • Start over from scratch somewhere else with build-out expenses and zero regular customers in an area potentially already occupied by competitors? Not likely.
  • Close their businesses
    • And do what? Find a Job? Not likely.
  • Lay off their employees
    • And sacrifice customer service, quality production and morale? Not likely.
  • Cut their employees hours
    • Already working with a bare-minimum staff, just how much more efficient can you get beyond replacing your full-time workers with only part-time workers?
Another stale argument is that minimum wage jobs are meant only for young students getting entry level experiences. Well I have news for you Rip Van Winkle, those jobs are not as upwardly mobile as they once were after World War II up through the 1970's. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Food prep and retail workers represent the largest group of employees earning less than $15 per hour and the median age is 37.

So for businesses planning on leaving the state I recommend the following GIF:



via GIPHY